The 85,000 tonne, 306-metre-long ship took two days to transit the canal and was bound for Livorno in Italy with a load of cargo from Jeddah.

The $8 billion New Suez Canal was built by the Egyptian army in less than 12 months and will be formally inaugurated by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi this month.

It is hoped that the new waterway will help expand trade along the shipping route, which connects Europe to Asia and earns Egypt around $5 billion per year.

An increase in two-way traffic will reduce navigation time and could triple revenue to $15 billion by 2023, according to official government projections.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government also plans to build an international industrial and logistics hub near the canal that it hopes will eventually make up about a third of the economy.

Bahrain has another link to the project in the form of the locally-registered Dar Group (Shair and Partners), which was part of a consortium that last year won the bid to make the general plan for the canal project.

Suez Canal Authority chairman Mohab Mamish said previously that the consultancy was chosen out of 14 international firms that met tender specifications.

Gulf Industry, published by Al Hilal Group has now established itself as a "must-read" publication for anyone with an involvement in the region's industrial sector whether as manufacturers, distributors or related service organisations.The publication represents a "window" into the Gulf's manufacturing trading and export sectors providing news, views analysis and information across virtually every industry related sector.